Characteristics of Technology Adoption by Older Adults with Visual Disabilities

As technology is advancing, a great number of people with disabilities try out and adopt various mainstream and assistive technologies. However, there has been less attention paid to older adults with visual disabilities, leading to poor user experience and technology abandonment. A convenience sample of 20 older adults with visual disabilities (visual acuity ranging from 20/70 to blind with no light perception at all; duration of vision loss, 28.35 ± 23.04 years; age, 72.85 ± 7.96 years) participated in semi-structured interviews and shared their experiences with technology adoption and abandonment. The diffusion of innovation theory helped to obtain a deep understanding of how older users with visual disabilities adopt or decline technologies, various characteristics of which were discussed through relative advantage, compatibility, observability, trialability, and complexity. The relative advantage was further analyzed for usability, safety, and accessibility, and the usability aspect was broken down into more details: effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. This study sheds light on the detailed characteristics that would ultimately contribute to designing, developing, and implementing future innovative technologies that meet the needs of the aging populations with visual disabilities.